With three more saves, Craig Kimbrel will reach the 100-save mark in just his third full season. / Ron Chenoy, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

Craig Kimbrel's brief career includes dominance never seen from a major league relief pitcher.

The Atlanta Braves closer has turned an unorthodox career path into unprecedented numbers. But more than a month from his 25th birthday, the fireballing right-hander is approaching the great unknown that will define his career and maybe shape the development of pitchers like him for decades.

This is the final season for the New York Yankees' Mariano Rivera, generally regarded as the greatest closer in baseball history, and Kimbrel is identified by many in the game as a possible successor. His physical ability has produced eye-opening feats in a brief career.

In 2012, Kimbrel struck out 116 batters, more than half the 231 he faced. No one had done that before.

Tuesday, he earned his eighth save this season - and the 97th of his career - in a 4-3 win against the Colorado Rockies, closing in on the 100-save mark in his third full season. No one has done that.

"He's got the firepower," Washington Nationals reliever Drew Storen says. "His fastball doesn't have normal movement to it. You get the wipeout breaking ball, too. When you have Nintendo stuff like he does ... it's pretty impressive to watch."

As Kimbrel gets deeper into what could be a record-setting career, he'll aim to prove that great closers can, in fact, be engineered from their first days as professionals.

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Signs were clear to Braves

Until recent years, elite relief pitchers evolved. They developed in the minor leagues as starters and then served apprenticeships in the majors before becoming closers.

Rivera, 43 and the game's career saves leader, didn't get his first save until he was 26. He started 67 games in the minors before that.

Kimbrel never has started a pro game. He has not pitched more than two innings in any of his more than 290 major and minor league appearances. He's not alone in this age of increasing specialization, but there's not enough data to judge the wisdom of the route the Braves chose for him.

"It's not the preferred way," general manager Frank Wren says. "We don't even necessarily prefer it, but when Craig came along, it was pretty obvious that was his role. He was dominant from the very beginning."

It's not only that he led the National League in saves in each of the past two seasons. It's how he did it. His 16.7 strikeouts per nine innings in 2012 were the most in major league history for a pitcher with at least 60 innings. He held opponents to a .126 average, the best since 1900.

His 1.38 career ERA is the best in history for anyone who has made as many as his 172 appearances. In fact, it's 30% better than second place: Hall of Famer Ed Walsh's 1.83.

Only Francisco Rodriguez - who emerged as a 20-year-old in the 2002 playoffs for the Los Angeles Angels - recorded more saves before turning 25, and Kimbrel figures to surpass his 106 before turning 25 on May 28.

Rodriguez is 31 and last week signed a minor league contract with the Milwaukee Brewers, appearing to be near the end of a career that has faded quickly over the past three seasons. But he's not a parallel for Kimbrel. Rodriguez spent three years as a starter in the minors before the Angels decided in 2002 he'd be a reliever. Kimbrel and Rodriguez are among the five pitchers who have recorded at least 90 saves before turning 25.

The others were drafted and developed - quickly - as closers. Gregg Olson was the first of the breed, a 1988 first-round pick of the Baltimore Orioles; Chad Cordero went to the Montreal Expos in 2003's first round. Both were in the majors the summer after they were drafted.

Both had career-altering arm injuries before they were 27.

San Diego Padres closer Huston Street is the fifth. Now 29, he's had intermittent shoulder issues - plus injuries not involving his arm - but nothing requiring surgery since he debuted with the Oakland Athletics in 2005. He says he has no way to know if being a reliever since his days at the University of Texas is a factor.

"I've often wondered that," Street says. "For me, it's just so ingrained now. If you have a solid routine, usually the results will turn out well. As many injuries as I've had, I've still made almost 60 appearances a year. So much of that is just individual, your body chemistry and makeup. Some of it's just getting lucky."

Kimbrel prefers not to wonder about the implications. But he thinks about it in terms of maintaining his excellence - and health.

"We prepare year-round," he says. "It's a different ballgame now. The game is the outcome of your work. All anybody sees is what we do on the field. It's what you do off the field."

***

Seeing is believing

Kimbrel has had to learn the physical regimen, just as he overcame every pitcher's preference: to be a starter.

"I came out of college (Wallace State Community College in Alabama) thinking, 'Well, no, I want to start,'" he says. "They told me I could get to the big leagues faster as a reliever. 'OK, I'm good with that.'

"I'd say it was a pretty good plan they had."

A plan based on what the Braves saw more than what they knew.

Wren acknowledges being a closer from Day One is probably not the ideal development plan. But Kimbrel made the Braves comfortable.

The Braves did this once before, drafting Joey Devine in 2005's first round. He recorded one save in a career short-circuited by elbow surgery in 2009, just when it seemed he was establishing himself with the A's.

But the parallel the Braves see for Kimbrel is a mirror image: Billy Wagner, the left-hander who spent the last of his 16 major league seasons with Atlanta before retiring with 422 saves, fifth-most all-time.

"Similar stature, similar body types and the exact same arm slot, just opposite sides," Wren says. "We always thought they were basically the same guy."

Kimbrel is 5-11. Wagner was listed at 5-10 and a natural right-hander who learned to throw left-handed because he broke his right arm twice as a child.

Wagner missed part of the 2000 season, when he was 28, with a torn flexor tendon but didn't have elbow surgery until he was 37. Wagner, though, was a minor league starter before he arrived with the Houston Astros at 24 and then-manager Terry Collins made him a reliever.

"Two-pitch pitcher," Collins says, citing the traditional reason pitchers become relievers: lack of an expanded repertoire to succeed as starters.

"I'm basically a two-pitch pitcher as well," says Kimbrel, who has a 96-mph fastball and sharp slider.

But they're so good that hitters are often powerless.

"When you throw 100 mph and then you have another pitch that you can throw for strikes," Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman says, "it doesn't really matter."

Wren notes that Kimbrel is a "max-effort" guy, and - as with any pitcher - there's no telling if that effort will take its toll.

"Obviously, I want to do this as long as I can," Kimbrel says. "It fits my personality to go out there and leave it all on the field."

And teammates love how that personality hasn't changed. "With all his success, he's still the redneck from Alabama, the Roll Tide kid who rocks Alabama stuff on the way in, with boots," Braves starting pitcher Kris Medlen says. "He's still the same guy, which is good to see, even though he's had two of the coolest seasons I've ever seen as a closer."

And it would be unfortunate if it's not a lot more than two seasons.

***

None of the top five pitchers on the career saves list started his career as a closer:

Player / Career saves / In the beginning1. Mariano Rivera* / 613 / A starter from 1992 to 1995 in the minors; made 10 starts for the Yankees.2. Trevor Hoffman / 601 / Was drafted as a shortstop; hit .228 in two seasons.3. Lee Smith / 478 / A 5.98 ERA in his fourth year starting in the minors.4. John Franco / 424 / Had an ill-fated beginning as a minor league starter.5. Billy Wagner / 422 / Never relieved until reaching the major leagues.*Active; total entering Tuesday